Neuroethics
June 20, 2024
Logan Neitzke-Spruill, Caroline Beit, Jill Robinson et al.
26 citations
Psychedelic experiences can be transformative, changing how people think and behave. In interviews with 26 participants in psychedelic retreats, 20 reported insights or experiences they believed were inaccessible without the drugs' psychoactive effects. All but one participant reported changes in identity, values, beliefs, desires, or behavior, with behavioral changes being most common. Participants felt capable of deciding to use psychedelics partly because they sought information beforehand. Several reported an enhanced ability to make changes in their lives. The findings highlight the importance of subjective embodiment and personal agency in shaping outcomes, raising neuroethical issues about consent and moral psychopharmacology.
Neuroethics
March 16, 2024
Nicolas Langlitz, Alex K. Gearin
26 citations
Psychedelic therapy, which combines psychedelic drugs with psychotherapy, is re-emerging as a potential treatment for mood disorders and addictions. The ethics of this therapy involve not just how psychotherapies change when paired with psychedelics, but how the therapies are shaped by values, norms, and metaphysical commitments. Based on published literature and interviews with seven psychedelic therapists in the United States, Germany, Switzerland, and Australia, the article examines patient autonomy, mechanisms of therapeutic action, and which therapies pair best with psychedelic substances. It compares this emergent form of life with ayahuasca use in Amazonian shamanism.
Neuroethics
February 15, 2024
Daniel Villiger
26 citations
The transformative nature of psychedelic-assisted therapy raises an ethical question about whether patients can give informed consent, because they cannot fully anticipate the experience. This paper argues that patients often have sufficient knowledge to consent, as they know they want to change their negative status quo and that the therapy offers an effective way to do so. Even without anticipating the specific manifestation of a psychedelic experience, patients can understand what the transformative nature means for them and make a value-aligned choice.
Neuroethics
November 6, 2023
Edward Jacobs, Ashleigh Murphy-Beiner, Ian Rouiller et al.
23 citations
In psychedelic clinical trials, the case for providing patients with continued access to the investigational drug after the trial ends is especially strong due to the drugs' broader legal status, the unique therapist-participant relationship, and the extended therapeutic process. Because the therapy's effectiveness relies heavily on non-drug factors and the cultural setting, the authors argue for expanding post-trial care beyond just drug access. They outline potential provisions and contend that viewing post-trial care as an integral part of research—and a proper use of funding—will help build the infrastructure needed for a future psychedelic medicine system after legalization.
Neuroethics
April 26, 2017
Rafael Ahlskog
22 citations
A formal model of prosocial motivation suggests that moral enhancement may be most effectively achieved by decreasing self-interested motivation rather than directly boosting prosocial traits like empathy or fairness, and that this should be paired with cognitive enhancement. Evidence from studies on cognitive capacity, mindfulness meditation, and psychedelic drugs supports this approach, with the moral effects of mindfulness and psychedelics hypothesized to arise from a diminished sense of self and subsequent reductions in self-interest. The model provides a framework for understanding the interplay of moral capacities and offers a route for further theoretical and empirical exploration.
Neuroethics
May 17, 2024
Chris Letheby
14 citations
Psychedelic experiences can reduce fear of death, but this paper argues they do so mainly by promoting non-physicalist metaphysical beliefs, not by other proposed mechanisms. This supports the REBUS model of psychedelic therapy over alternatives. The finding also undermines the neuroexistentialist project of using psychedelics to naturalize spirituality: rather than reconciling people to a naturalistic worldview, psychedelics reduce existential angst by persuading people that such a worldview is false.
Neuroethics
May 25, 2022
Emma C. Gordon
10 citations
Moral enhancement proposals often fail to be both plausible and ethically defensible while remaining distinct from cognitive enhancement or moral education. Psychedelics used as adjuncts to moral development offer a promising middle ground. Drawing on psychotherapy, education, and AI-assisted enhancement, trusting relationships between facilitator and agent plausibly maximize the success of such moral enhancement. Informed consent and therapeutic relationship literature provide concrete suggestions for facilitating trust dimensions most likely to benefit adjunctive psychedelic moral enhancement, resulting in a detailed practical proposal.
Neuroethics
April 1, 2025
Christopher Poppe, Daniel Villiger, Dimitris Repantis et al.
9 citations
Ethical problems in training for psychedelic therapy include the need for comprehensive training due to participant vulnerability, reliance on psychedelic experience without psychotherapeutic training, self-disclosure of personal psychedelic use, and guruism. Mitigation strategies include ethics codes and training, monitoring and control via video recording, requiring professional licensure and psychotherapy training for practitioners, and imposing a cooling-off period after therapists' personal psychedelic experiences to avoid a 'honeymoon' effect.
Neuroethics
August 24, 2024
Nathan Emmerich
3 citations
Psychedelic medicine is re-emerging as a therapeutic modality, particularly for terminally ill patients experiencing existential distress near the end of life. This distress involves demoralization and a sense of meaninglessness, impairing one's ability to create or realize meaning. Psychedelic experiences, in contrast, often produce profound and lasting meaning. The essay examines whether meaning is a proper concern for healthcare and highlights implications of psychedelic medicine. It concludes by urging bioethics to recognize itself as a meaningful cultural discourse shaping the future of medicine, psychedelics, and what it means to be human.
Neuroethics
March 1, 2025
Adrian Kind
1 citation
The Comforting Delusion Objection argues that psychedelic therapy may improve mental well-being but causes epistemic harm by generating metaphysical beliefs incompatible with naturalism. This paper counters that objection with the Faithful Response: the non-naturalistic attitudes arising from psychedelic experiences are typically forms of faith, not beliefs. Faith is non-doxastic and thus not subject to epistemic evaluation, so it cannot be deemed epistemically harmful. Without such harm, the Comforting Delusion Objection loses its force.
Neuroethics
May 31, 2026
Fangxu Han, Haidan Chen
Advances in brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) have sparked debates about mind reading and mental privacy, with many assuming brain data can reveal inner thoughts. However, successful decoding, as in PIN or semantic reconstruction experiments, depends on structured tasks, controlled stimuli, and participant cooperation. Drawing on enactivism, this paper argues that BCI-mediated mind reading is not direct access to hidden thoughts but an interactional effect co-produced by technology, environment, and user engagement. Protecting mental privacy therefore requires more than data control; it must safeguard individuals' autonomy and agency in sense-making and embodied expression. This reframing challenges inflated claims about BCI capabilities and grounds a more robust ethical framework for neurotechnology governance.
Neuroethics
May 13, 2026
Christina Chwyl, Alissa Bazinet, Adrianne R. Wilson-Poe et al.
Informed consent in psychedelic-assisted services is ethically complex and lacks standardization. Expert recommendations from 36 participants (71% white, 53% female, average 15.2 years of experience in clinical trial, underground, or ceremonial settings) emphasized that consent should be an ongoing process built on a strong therapeutic relationship and client empowerment. Comprehensive disclosure of risks and benefits is needed, including long-term psychological and social changes and the possibility of disappointing experiences. Detailed consent around touch and boundaries is crucial, with explicit boundary-setting before administration and attention to non-verbal cues. Provider training should cultivate deep respect for client agency and experiential learning of relational and boundary skills.
Neuroethics
December 29, 2025
Phoebe Friesen
Psychedelic science is burdened by a history of colonial harms, participant abuse, and the violent War on Drugs, which continue to shape the field. These 'ghosts' include appropriation, biopiracy, ecological damage, unethical MK-Ultra experiments, and ongoing vulnerabilities in clinical trials, as well as over-policing that makes racialized communities feel unsafe. Moral repair demands acknowledgment, accountability, compensation, and listening, echoing reconciliation after human rights abuses. The manuscript questions whether reconciliation is possible or desirable, or whether remaining haunted is preferable.